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Tag: Joe Talbot

  • British Post-Punks IDLES Spilled Their Guts in Dallas

    British Post-Punks IDLES Spilled Their Guts in Dallas

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    Nearly selling out South Side Ballroom, post-punk’s madcap boys from Bristol, IDLES, played Dallas last night for the final date of the U.S. leg of their “LOVE IS THE FING TOUR.” Supporting TANGK, the band’s fifth studio album, the ferociously vulnerable five-piece outfit is now halfway through a year-long, worldwide outing. The band will play three shows (in Florida and New Orleans) in mid-June on their way to Bonnaroo, and will be back in the States for four more in September (Asheville, Atlanta, Chicago, Boston) — and that’s it…

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    Vanessa Quilantan

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  • IDLES Brings the Love to Houston

    IDLES Brings the Love to Houston

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    IDLES
    White Oak Music Hall
    May 22, 2024

    The contemplative serenity of Houston’s Rothko Chapel might seem an unlikely subject to introduce to the frenzy of a mosh pit, but not at an IDLES concert. Lead singer and songwriter Joe Talbot tempered the furious, sweaty bang of the band’s fans’ bodies with a soliloquy which not only stopped them in their circle-pitting tracks but provided the theme of the night.

    “I’d like to share something with you, if I may. So, today we went to the Rothko Chapel, which is next to the monument for the slain Martin Luther King. I went inside and it’s an octagonal building with massive, dark paintings on the wall. And I sat down on a pew and I looked at this huge, dark mass, and I stared at it for a while and it reminded me of death or the deep ocean or something as terrifying as that,” Talbot said just a few songs into the 25-plus song set last night at White Oak Music Hall.

    “And then, as I watched and I reflected and meditated on the image, some light filtered in through the sunroof and showed me a form. And in the form, I saw what I could only describe as all the people I love. And it was a beautiful moment and it was an enlightening moment where I realized there are things in there – the light and the form in that darkness is what we’ve been working towards for so long.

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    IDLES’ Joe Talbot

    Photo by Violeta Alvarez

    “We make art and we make music as a way to reflect and to feel something much bigger than ourselves. And this is it. This communion that we’re in right now, the thing between us can only be described as love. You have brought the fucking light.”

    The song that followed was “I’m Scum,” which might seem paradoxical to the IDLES uninitiated, but is a treasured anthem of sorts for the band’s devoted followers, so much so that the phrase was backpatched on at least one jacket we saw on the lawn. The line, “This snowflake’s an avalanche,” is a rallying cry to IDLES’ like-minded, anti-fascist, monarchy-disdaining, ceasefire-calling supporters. The band dubbed this the “LOVE IS THE FING” tour and then went out, from city to city, to spread the word of love for ourselves and others, song by raucous song.

    The songs which accomplished that mission best were “Television,” which literally advises listeners to “Love yourself,” when “the bastards made you not want to look like you,” and “Mr. Motivator,” which features one of IDLES’ best lines of all, “Like Kathleen Hanna with bear claws grabbing Trump by the pussy.” The song was high in the set and its chorus “Let’s seize the day, all hold hands chase the pricks away,” was Tony Robbins gone mad and the ideal set up for a night of embracing our shared ideals.

    Songs from TANGK, the band’s new album, were well-received, particularly “Gift Horse,” which had Houstonians crashing hard into each other during the repeated “Look at him go!” lines of the song. “Dancer” was also a highlight, with audience members mimicking Talbot’s gyrations and whatever funky moves guitarist Mark Bowen was doing behind him.

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    Lee Kiernan on the White Oak lawn

    Photo by Violeta Alvarez

    Another highlight and a pivotal moment of the show was “Danny Nedelko,” which saw Bowen in the audience for a fully-vertical crowd surf. Amazing. The song allowed the band to remind us all of the human costs of geopolitics. It’s a full-on expression of love for our fellow humans and the gifts we all can bring to each other if we’re only allowed.

    “Now, this song is a celebration of the bravery and the hard work of the immigrants that built your country. In the face of all the fucking bullshit and the fascism, we come with love and empathy and celebrate the bravery and the hard work of the immigrants that built our country,” Talbot introduced. “It’s an honor to play in front of you. This is for you, this is for the people of Palestine and this is for Danny Ne-fucking-delko!”

    The band had a little fun with the hard curfew imposed at White Oak, reminding us they had an hour and one second of music yet to play midway through the set, and later three songs and a second. Drummer Jon Beavis seemed to be literally pounding out every available second of the set during the closer, “Rottweiler,” a huge smile on his face as if trading an inside joke with Bowen. He and bassist Adam Devonshire and the whirling dervish guitarist Lee Kiernan were the engine that kept IDLES moving. Talbot spoke on their behalf at the show’s close.

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    Mark Bowen

    Photo by Violeta Alvarez

    “We’ve been doing this for 15 years and this is one of the most beautiful fucking things anyone could give someone, is their energy and their love and their time. Thank you so much for coming here and making us feel at home so far from where we live,” he said to huge applause. “There has not been one single fucking day that I do not wake up and know exactly how fucking lucky I am and that’s because of you.”

    The Openers: Chicago’s Ganser started the early show promptly at 6:30 p.m. The four-piece post-punk rockers got bodies stirring with co-vocalists Sophie Sputnik and Alicia Gaines alternating turns hyping the crowd for IDLES (“They’re like honestly one of the best bands I’ve ever seen live,” Sputnik said mid-set) while also turning us onto the cool slow burn of music that builds steam and gets the generator going.

    Personal Bias: I opened my recent chat with IDLES guitarist/songwriter Mark Bowen with a story from pandemic lockdown. My own road warrior kids were set to tour Europe in May 2020 and since no one knew when it would be safe to hit the road and perform for the masses, they holed up at Sendehaus and hoped their plans wouldn’t be foiled by coronavirus (they were).

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    As the uncertainty grew and the idle hours mounted, their stir craziness manifested in weird ways. One pursuit that lasted four or five days was learning and playing IDLES’ “Never Fight a Man With a Perm” in the house’s makeshift rehearsal room. Mornings would begin with the familiar bang of the song’s backbeat, a pummeling that mirrors the mayhem inherent in the song’s lyrics. “AND A BAG OF CHARLIE SHEEN!!! AND A BAG OF COCAINE!!!” were refrains that surely frightened the poor Instacart delivery drivers who’d come to leave groceries (which, we’d then wash thoroughly and sanitize) on the doorstep.

    The last performance of the song was filmed and, as I told Bowen, it included broken drumsticks, some drunken belligerence and even a bloody face or two. I listened to a lot of music during those long, unsettled days, but none captured the pent-up rage, frustration, anxiety and, ultimately the union and love required to survive the moment like “Perm.” It’ll forever be my pandemic lockdown song. Getting to hear it out in the open air, with a lawn full of IDLES fans – and yeah, there was maybe some drunken belligerence and a bloody face or two by the time they reached it in the set – was a highlight concert moment this side of those lockdown days.

    The Crowd: The crowd at an IDLES show is nearly as critical to the evening as the performers on stage. More critical, Talbot would likely say. The band feeds off the zeal of its acolytes and it did not go hungry last night. We were entrenched in the pit, determined to have the full IDLES experience, and we must say there’s no other way to take in this show. No offense to those who sat on the slope behind us but feeling the warmth of moving bodies, inhaling the salty aroma from their sweat-drenched t-shirts, joining their voices in exultation – it’s more than just watching a show. An IDLES show is life-affirming stuff and being welcomed to that just feet away from the band is one of the concert highlights of a lifetime of shows.

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    Overheard in the Crowd: “Their energy – they’ve surpassed Rage Against the Machine.”

    Random Notebook Dump: Houston music podcasts were in the house (or, you know, just outside of it on White Oak’s lawn) last night. In addition to Vinyl Voices, we spotted Masaya Tamegai and Thomas and Ashley Meeks, of the Long River Sessions podcast, which has recently resumed episodes. The show once hosted yours truly for an episode in which they shared the story of traveling to far-off cities to watch IDLES where Masaya fan-boyed (and lo-key stalked) Talbot at the venue’s bar. The granddaddy of Houston music pods, Dead Dialect, nabbed an exclusive interview with Talbot, which we are incredibly excited to see soon. Host Brandon Clements promised the episode will drop in the near future. Keep an eye out for it and all these local podcasts are doing to showcase music from Houston and beyond.

    IDLES Set List:

    IDEA 01
    Colossus
    Gift Horse
    Mr. Motivator
    Mother
    Car Crash
    I’m Scum
    Grounds
    The Wheel
    Jungle
    When the Lights Come On
    War
    Wizz
    Television
    Gratitude
    Divide & Conquer
    Exeter
    POP POP POP
    Television
    Crawl!
    The Beachland Ballroom
    Never Fight a Man With a Perm
    Dancer
    Danny Nedelko
    Kiss From a Rose
    All I Want for Christmas is You
    Rottweiler

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    Jesse Sendejas Jr.

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  • Adele and the Wine Factory: “I Drink Wine” Video Refreshes the Public’s Memory of There Being a Bigger Wine Enthusiast in the Music Business Than Taylor Swift

    Adele and the Wine Factory: “I Drink Wine” Video Refreshes the Public’s Memory of There Being a Bigger Wine Enthusiast in the Music Business Than Taylor Swift

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    Every time you think Adele might have disappeared yet again for good (Greta Garbo-style), she’s known to randomly reemerge and remind fans that she’s not totally out of album promotion mode. Even if she did just say she’s “taking a break” from music soon to pursue an English literature degree. Maybe she’d be taking that break even sooner were it not for that damned Vegas residency she committed to. And since she backed out of said residency for a spell before reinstating the dates for commencement this fall (starting from November 18th to March 25th at Caesar’s Palace), perhaps she wanted to serve up her booziest track from 30, “I Drink Wine,” in time to mark the occasion.

    A single that possibly seeks to remind Taylor Swift, who constantly mentions drinking wine in her own songs, that Adele is a British dame who could drink Tay’s country ass under the table. And she has her own wine river to prove it. Or at least, one wants to believe it’s a river filled with wine, the same way viewers likely wanted believe it was actually chocolate in that river at Charlie’s factory (spoiler alert: it was just “stinky water,” “disgusting stuff that had been sitting there for three weeks”).

    Nonetheless, thanks to the “magic of Hollywood” a.k.a. director Joe Talbot, we can make believe with Adele all we want to as she sloshes down the river atop a red inner tube, of sorts, whilst wearing a sequined gold evening gown (her running aesthetic for the 30 era)—by Valentino, no less. For, just because you like to get drunk, doesn’t mean you can’t keep it classy. That is, if you’re rich enough to make it come across that way. And, obviously, Adele is. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her fair share of heartbreak to continue singing about with the misleadingly-titled 30 (for she was thirty-three when she released it), her “divorce album.”

    “I Drink Wine” visualizes those heartbreaks like something of a trip down memory lane by glimpsing into the lives of others as she floats along the river (of life) and encounters various characters sitting on the bank, including a couple chatting happily as Adele looks at them somewhat resentfully and sings, “How can we both become a version of a person that we don’t even like?” She then pours the remainder of the bottle she’s holding into her glass and chucks it into the river (not exactly a PSA for being environmentally-friendly).

    Another glance into a duo that seems more like her future than her past is a mother alone with her child. Trying to read in peace, the little girl interrupts her mother by wielding a sailboat in her direction and then heaving it obnoxiously into the water. As this happens, Adele recalls, “When I was a child, every single thing could blow my mind.” Apparently, this child is less wowed by the simple things, being a “seen it all…online” Gen Zer. Adele continues, “Soaking it all up for fun, but now I only soak up wine.” At this moment, a hand reaches out of the water to refill her glass, giving the video’s tone a comedic edge (or a horror one, depending on how you look at it). Adele’s intention being to accent the tragicomedy of life—you know, like her fellow Briton, William Shakespeare (and yes, the final shot does feature her in a poignant “Ophelia pose”).

    That “tragicomedy” playing into the that trite line about how when one door closes, a window opens. In this video’s case, that window is opening to Rich Paul stand-in, Kendrick Sampson, best known for playing Issa’s boyfriend, Nathan, on Insecure. Having no issue with displaying her “flavor” for Black men (as certain white Brits might), Adele makes flirtatious lookie-loos the moment she sees him amid some other fishermen at the river. The allusion being that Adele is the fish in the sea about to be plucked out, for the moment he sees her, he does a double take, perhaps getting off on her challenge, “I don’t know anybody who’s truly satisfied.”

    From there, Talbot gives us a slow pan-out of an overhead shot that allows us to take in the barrage of synchronized swimmers that are about to engage in some Busby Berkeley-inspired choreography. And as Adele and Kendrick’s own flirtatious “dance” ensues, the swimmers themselves lift Kendrick overhead and pass him along, which, of course, could easily be read as objectification of some sort. But Adele’s never been one for too much sensitivity (see: the Bantu knots).

    Things take a slightly eerier, The Night of the Hunter turn when darkness falls and Adele is still riding down the river as shadowy figures dance along the bank next to her. But she seems comforted by the presence of a blue bird staring back at her on a branch, a creature that has long been believed to symbolize hope and the arrival of good news. Which, for Adele, was the arrival of Rich Paul after her divorce. A deeper meaning of the blue bird is its representation of being a conduit between the living and the dead. In that sense, it can be read as Adele remaining connected to her old, “deceased” self—the one that would have stayed mostly unhappy in a so-so marriage—and knowing that this new, more alive version of who she is has set her on the right path in life. Indeed, “I Drink Wine” is a video all about taking a path, even if it’s in a watery format.

    As the video starts to wine down, the camera pans back over to the piano player we saw on the bridge at the beginning of this meandering little jaunt. Creating a fanciful, idyllic effect like something out of Michel Gondry’s Mood Indigo. And yes, since she felt “I Drink Wine” has a 70s-era Elton flair, it was only natural to include a piano man somewhere in the narrative. One that seems to allude to a kind of disillusionment with drinking as a coping mechanism, with a memorable scene of Adele pushing a flurry of wine glass-offering arms away from her as they jut out of the water. By the end, she takes a final swig and tosses the glass aside (again, no regard for Mother Nature). Maybe learning to get over wine is part of learning to “get over herself,” as she says in the song. But, then again, no. Adele will always drink.

    Admitting that this was the first video she shot for 30, before “Easy On Me” or “Oh My God,” it’s clear that there’s a level of perfectionism in it that comes from wanting to instantly establish the “right” tone for a record. And, like Taylor Swift’s recently released Midnights, 30 is very much a concept album. Indeed, the frequent parallels between the two songstresses are manifest not only in the mention of wine reliance, but also even in specific lyrics (most of them generally pertaining to being burned by love). For example, on “I Drink Wine,” Adele croons, “Everybody wants something from me/You just want me.” This echoes the same sentiments Taylor put forth on “Sweet Nothing” with, “All that you ever wanted from me was sweet nothin’.” Ah, the curse of being famous and wary of trusting people’s intentions.

    And, talking of fame, Adele has been particularly fond of playing up the Old Hollywood aesthetic for this record, with the glamorousness (conveyed by cinematography from Adam Newport-Berra) of it all ironically punctuated by the video concluding with the camera pulling back all the way to unveil the set in its entirety—revealing that Adele is merely floating in a giant manufactured vat of water with a huge screen in front of it projecting different images. The metaphor is clear: behind the scenes of any seemingly “soft-focus lens” romance is the grit and grime of what it takes to cast that illusion. Not just to others, but even to oneself. With 30, and “I Drink Wine,” Adele has become determined never to give in to such illusions again, tempting though it is to get “pie-eyed” and not see things as clearly as they are.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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